Widespread probe
Search continues for source of US mail bombs and the motive
WASHINGTON — Investigators have been searching across the United States for the culprit and motives behind the bizarre mail-bomb plot aimed at critics of the president, analyzing the crude devices to reveal whether they were intended to detonate or simply sow fear less than two weeks before midterm elections in the US.
Three more devices were linked to the plot on Thursday — two addressed to former vice-president Joe Biden and one to actor Robert De Niro — bringing the total to 10 in an outbreak of politically loaded menace with little if any precedent. Authorities warned there might well be more.
Law enforcement officials said the devices, which contained timers and batteries, were not rigged like boobytrapped package bombs that would explode upon opening. But they remained uncertain whether the devices were poorly designed or never intended to cause physical harm.
A search of a postal database suggested at least some may have been mailed from Florida, one official said. Investigators are homing in on a postal facility in Opa-locka, Florida, where they believe some of the packages originated, another official said.
The US officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation by name.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in an interview on Thursday night with Fox News Channel, acknowledged that some of packages originated in Florida.
New details about the devices came as the four-day mail-bomb scare spread nationwide, drawing investigators from dozens of federal, state and local agencies in the effort to identify one or more perpetrators.
‘Live devices’
The targets have included former US president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary, former attorney general Eric Holder, former CIA director John Brennan, California Representative Maxine Waters and CNN.
At a news conference on Thursday, officials in New York would not discuss possible motives, or details on how the packages found their way into the US postal system. Nor would they say why none of the packages had detonated, but they stressed they were still treating them as “live devices”.
The list of bombing targets spread from New York, Delaware and Washington, to Florida and California.
The packages stoked nationwide tensions and fears as voters prepared to vote on Nov 6 to determine control of Congress — a campaign both parties have described in near-apocalyptic terms. Even with the sender still unknown, politicians from both parties used the threats to decry a toxic political climate and lay blame.
“A very big part of the anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the mainstream media that I refer to as fake news,” US President Donald Trump said on social media. “It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream media must clean up its act, fast!”
Former CIA director John Brennan, the target of a package sent to CNN, fired back.
“Stop blaming others. Look in the mirror,” Brennan said in a posting on social media. “Your inflammatory rhetoric, insults, lies, and encouragement of physical violence are disgraceful. Clean up your act ... try to act presidential.”
It has gotten so bad and hateful ... Mainstream media must clean up its act, fast!”
Donald Trump, US president